When did an Englishman first raise the question of whether the ancient Macedonians were Greek?

 When did an Englishman first raise the question of whether the ancient Macedonians were Greek?

A notable early case is William Martin Leake (1777–1860), a British topographer and antiquarian. During his travels and writings on Greece in the early 19th century, Leake discussed the ancient Macedonians, and his works helped shape early Western views on ancient Greek geography and ethnicity. However, Leake generally considered Macedonians as Greek or closely connected to the Greeks.

The real modern "dilemma" was shaped more by historians and philologists in the 19th and 20th centuries, as modern Greece and Slavic Macedonia (later North Macedonia) emerged with competing claims to the legacy of Alexander the Great and the ancient kingdom of Macedon.

Key points:

In antiquity, Greek writers like Herodotus, Thucydides, and Arrian referred to the Macedonians as having Greek lineage, though some also viewed them as semi-barbaric due to their political and cultural differences from the southern city-states.

The modern debate was intensified after the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) and the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, especially when Yugoslavia began promoting a distinct Macedonian identity.

The issue became particularly politicized in the late 20th century, during and after the breakup of Yugoslavia, when the new Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia) adopted symbols and narratives connected to ancient Macedon.